IBM Corp. said that it is expanding a program that sends employee teams to developing countries to assist local organizations on projects that involve business, social or technology issues.

The Armonk-based computer services giant said that the expanded program, known as the Corporate Service Corps, will result in 1,500 employees working in the various countries by 2010, up from 600 currently.

By the end of 2009, IBM will deploy 52 global teams of eight to 10 employees to countries that include the Philippines, Vietnam, China, Malaysia, Brazil, Tanzania, Ghana, South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Romania and Turkey.

“Participants benefit via a once-in-a-life-time, problem-solving exercise in the developing world, communities gain by obtaining hundreds of thousands of dollars in pro bono expert consulting services, and IBM benefits by growing its next generation of leaders with the skills required to lead in a globally-integrated world,” said Stanley S. Litow, vice president of corporate citizenship and corporate affairs at IBM.

Nigeria—a new countty that IBM is adding to the program this year—provides examples of the type of projects that are receiving assistance from IBM. In that African country, IBM workers will help the government devise an information system for monitoring child and maternal health and help create an information technology platform that will link 18 government departments.

IBM remains the world’s largest vendor for information technology consulting, according to a report by industry analyst firm IDC. This is the second consecutive year that IBM has ranked first in the report, which ranks the top 10 information technology vendors worldwide and in the United States based on revenues.

IBM Corp. is planning a major research program to help the company capitalize on an accelerating technology trend—- Consumers who are using cell phones and other mobile devices to visit Internet sites for work or entertainment.

The Armonk-based technology services giant said today that the commitment includes a $100 million investment over five years to fund research into mobile services and technology.

IBM and other companies see mobile devices as a potential lucrative revenue stream at a time when the traditional market for personal computers and telephone equipment is maturing. IBM projects that the number of mobile device users will grow by 191 percent from 2006 to 2011 to 1 billion users. In one example, cell phones now outnumber traditional land-line phones.

More consumers look to mobile technology to keep them connected, whether they are at home or the office, the beach or the golf course, a restauarant or a moutainside hiking trail. Mobile devices are a popular place for investors to check stock quotes, sports junkies to monitor the latest scores or video game enthusiats to indulge their passions.

“Mobile devices are gradually becoming ubiquitous and helping us transcend many boundaries — geographical, economic, and social, among others,” said Guruduth Banavar, global leader of the mobile communications focus for IBM Research.

The growth of mobile devices is being driven by falling costs, improved wireless access and tremendous advances in computer chips.

As IBM increases its research into mobile services, it can draw on the expertise of 3,000 scientists at eight major laboratories around the globe, including Yorktown Heights. It also employs more than 20,000 software developers in 75 development labs in 18 countries.

IBM already is putting its mobility technology to work in projects such as “BlueStar,” which is developing mobile devices for insurance claims processing; a pilot program in southern India that allows farmers, repairmen, small business owners and consumers to access content on cellphones; and a project in Taiwan in which IBM is analyzing customer cell phone information to develop insights into customer preferences and transaction history.

IBM Corp. announced an agreement to provide technology services to Guangzhou Metro Corp., the operator of a rapid transit system in one of China’s largest cities.

Under the agreement, Armonk-based IBM will help Guangzhou Metro manage its information technology systems and its spawling network of four commuter lines, 60 stations and more than 72 miles of rail track. The transit system serves more than two million passengers a day. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

In addition to the Chinese project, IBM is seeking a share of the $8 billion investment in high-speed rail systems in the United States, according to Bloomberg News. That investment was included in the $787 billion economic stimulus package that was signed into law last month by President Barack Obama.

Volkswagen Group, Germany’s largest auto company, is turning to IBM Corp. for help in making its manufacturing more efficient through advanced sensor technology.

Volkswagen is getting ready to install the new system, known as radio-frequency identification, at a major German plant with the assistance of Armonk-based IBM.

Under the RFID system, shipping containers of auto parts bound for Volkswagen’s factory assembly line are marked with RFID tags. High-tech reader devices and workers with handheld scanners can track the tagged containers as they move from point to point from suppliers to Volkswagen.

In a recently completed one-year pilot project, Volkswagen placed RFID tags on 3,000 shipping containers carrying sunroofs for the new Volkswagen Golf. Readers at the entrances to the Volkswagen manufacturing line, and mobile handheld scanners, were able to identify the containers and the sunroofs inside.

“The pilot project has been ground-breaking,” said Kurt Rindle, IBM global sensor solutions executive, in a written statement. “Volkswagen is driving innovation by becoming the first vehicle manufacturer to make daily use of RFID technology in the flow of materials between suppliers and the manufacturing line.”

Volkswagen said that RFID can also cut paperwork and overhead for manufacturers.

“The pilot project showed that we can reliably integrate RFID technology into our business processes at a low cost,” said Klaus Hardy Mühleck, head of group information technolgy at Volkswagen.

IBM Corp. is helping U.S. hospitals improve their health care technolgy at a time when the federal stimulus package provides $19 billion of additional funding for such investments.

The Armonk-based computer services giant announced new agreements with four hopsitals this week, including an IBM system at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., in which doctors are notified electronically when lab results indicate a critical situation for patients.

In addition, Trillium Health Centre in Canada is using IBM systems to provide data on patient length of stay, patient safety, staff retention and budgets.

IBM estimated that it is helping more than 1,000 hospitals worldwide on tech projects that include electronic medical records.

Such spending is likely to accelerate as a result of the economic stimulus package, recently signed into law by President Barack Obama. The legislation included grants and incentives for health care providers to develop electronic medical records, implement new tech systems and boost efficiencies.

“Now is an important time for industry leaders to step up and contribute to health care reform and transformation,” said Dan Pelino, general manager of IBM Healthcare & Life Sciences Industry. “To accelerate achievement of such goals, IBM is teaming with our many business partners, alliances and key clients” to invest in new health care technologies.

An index tracking the outlook for technology jobs declined in Westchester County during the fourth quarter as the region felt the effects of the global economic slowdown.

Five of the 11 tech job categories tracked by the Pace/SkillPROOF IT Job Index declined in Westchester during the quarter. Another five were flat.

“While the economy continues to depress the job market, including IT, businesses are taking stock of how to do ‘more for less’,” said Judy Arteche-Carr, chair of the Society for Information Management’s New York chapter.

The best performing job category, network administrators, reversed a year-long decline and turned positive. The job category of software engineers, including systems specialists and applications specialists, also showed improvement. The Westchester index itself dropped from 63 to 53 during the quarter. A separate Manhattan index fell to 44 in the fourth quarter from 88 in the third quarter.

The full report is available at www.pace.edu/PSII.

IBM Corp. today said that it is introducing software that will help companies automate paper-driven processes, lower their operating costs and cut paper use.

The Armonk-based company said the service is needed because consumption of paper is holding steady in American offices despite predictions that the growth of computers and e-mail would cut into use.

More than 90 percent of business information is still communicated on paper, resulting in the average office worker throwing out 100 to 200 pounds of paper annually, the company said.

A new report by Pace University shows the job market in the region for jobs in the information technology, or IT, sector shrunk dramatically during the third quarter, with few exceptions.

The decline was most pronounced in Westchester, Pace said, where the IT job market had its worst quarterly slide since Pace created its IT job index three years ago.

The Pace/SkillPROOF IT Job Index dropped more than 100 points during the third quarter, in contrast to the strong growth of over 40 points reported last quarter.

In Westchester, of the 11 job categories, only Network Systems and Data Communications Analysts exhibited growth with a slight upturn near the end of the quarter, said Pace, which has campuses in Pleasantville, White Plains and New York City.

The IT job market in Manhattan was better, Pace said, falling just 30 points.

The full report can be read at www.pace.edu/PSII.

ITT Corp. of White Plains said that a new contract to provide management and support services for the Strategic Command of the U.S. Air Force is valued at up to $900 million over five years.
The work will be managed out of ITT’s Bellevue, Neb. office. It will support Air Force missions in the areas of deterrence, space operations, and cyber defense.

JMT Consulting Group of Patterson has agreed to acquire St. Louis-based NFP Consultants Inc., said the companies, which both provide consulting and software to nonprofit organizations.

Terms of the deal, announced this week, weren’t disclosed.

“Bringing these two great companies together will allow us to transcend what we have accomplished as separate businesses into one superior consultancy,” said Jacqueline Tiso, founder and chief executive of JMT Consulting.

The purchase is subject to customary conditions and is expected to close within 60 days, the companies said.

JMT has 25 employees, about a dozen of which work at the company’s Putnam offices, a spokeswoman said.

IBM Corp. of Armonk plans to build a $360 million data center at its plant in Research Triangle Park, N.C.

The data center will include new technologies and services that will enable the computing giant to provide individuals with access to information and services from any device with high levels of quality and availability, IBM said.

IBM will renovate an existing building at the North Carolina campus to create one of the most technologically advanced and energy-efficient data centers in the world, it said.

IBM Corp. has elected Taizo Nishimuro to the company’s board of directors, the Armonk-based company said today.

Nishimuro, 72, is chairman of the board of the Tokyo Stock Exchange Group Inc.

Nishimuro’s knowledge and insights into Asian markets will make a significant contribution to IBM, said Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Samuel J. Palmisano.

Fujifilm Corp. has named Hiro Sakai president of Fujifilm Holdings America Corp., the Tokyo-based company said today.

Fujifilm Holdings America, based in Valhalla, has operations in 32 U.S. states and employs more than 6,300 employees in research, development, manufacturing, sales and service of Fujifilm products.

Sakai succeeds Taizo Mori, who has been named president and chief executive of Fujifilm Logistics Co., based in Tokyo.

Sakai will continue to serve as president and chief executive of Fujifilm USA Inc., also based in Valhalla.

Sakai, who joined the company in 1977, was also promoted to corporate vice president, Fujifilm Corp., Fujifilm said.

IBM Corp. agreed today to pay about $215 million euros ($340 million) for Ilog SA, a French maker of business software.

The deal will enable the Armonk-based computing giant to combine its business process management, business optimization and service oriented architecture technologies with Ilog’s business rules management systems software, IBM said.

IBM’s offer represents a 37 percent premium above Ilog’s closing price on Friday.

The deal has the approval of the Ilog board, which will make a decision on the deal before Sept. 15, after which the offer will be filed with the French stock exchange authority.

Shares of Big Blue rose fractionally in trading today to $126.48 each.

IBM Corp. said today it plans to accelerate investments in the developing nations of China, Mexico and India by opening centers of excellence in each nation.

These emerging-market countries, so-called because of their high economic growth potential, represented 19 percent of IBM’s geographic revenue in the second quarter, and as a group grew 21 percent, IBM said.

“These results demonstrate that IBM has the ability to thrive in emerging markets,” said Bruno Di Leo, IBM general manager of growth markets. “Our continued investment give IBM a competitive edge,” he said.

The centers of excellence include a banking operation in China, a retail innovation center in Guadalajara, Mexico, and a management center in India, IBM said.

About 65,000 employees of Verizon Communications Inc., including 1,400 in the Lower Hudson Valley, are prepared to strike once a five-year contract expires after midnight on Aug. 2.
Members of the Communications Workers of America this week authorized their leadership to call a strike if a new deal can’t be reached. The local CWA unions include Local 1103 in Port Chester, representing 1,100 Verizon workers in Westchester and Putnam, and Local 1107 in New City, representing 300 Verizon workers in Rockland.
The CWA workers include field and central office technicians, and business office staff. They do not include workers at the Verizon Wireless regional headquarters in Orangeburg.
The last time a contract expired in 2003, the union agreed to work until a deal was reached. The union struck for nearly three weeks in 2000.
CWA staff said pensions, health benefits, and access to employment in new job fields are key issues in the talks.
Verizon spokesman John Bonomo described the union vote authorizing a strike as a standard procedure in contract talks. He declined to comment on specific issues.
“Our interest is certainly to negotiate in good faith and to get a timely and fair contract,” he said.

New York State Electric & Gas Corp. is advising its electricity customers, which include 85,000 in Westchester, Dutchess and Putnam counties, that they can now report outages through the companies revised Web site (www.nyseg.com), by clicking on the Outage Central tab on the company’s home page.

“While it may seem odd to think about having Web access when the power is out, more and more NYSEG customers are using wireless technology or may be reporting an outage at home from work or another location where the power is on,” the company said.

In addition to reporting outages, customers can also view where service interruptions have occurred by town and street.

In the event of extended outages, news releases and the locations of any emergency shelters and dry ice and water distribution sites are also posted, NYSEG said.

IBM Corp. of Armonk and Iron Mountain Inc. of Boston said yesterday they will design a joint solution for businesses that need to manage both paper and electronic records. The unified product will combine Iron Mountain’s Accutrac software for managing physical records, and IBM’s FileNet Records Manager. The rise of compliance and regulation requirements is forcing companies to tighten control over information and to seek uniform record-keeping practices, IBM and Iron Mountain said. The unified product is expected to be available late this year.

IBM Corp. of Armonk and Iron Mountain Inc. of Boston said yesterday they will design a joint solution for businesses that need to manage both paper and electronic records. The unified product will combine Iron Mountain’s Accutrac software for managing physical records, and IBM’s FileNet Records Manager. The rise of compliance and regulation requirements is forcing companies to tighten control over information and to seek uniform record-keeping practices, IBM and Iron Mountain said. The unified product is expected to be available late this year.